That's me flying in a UH60 between bases.

Here's what it looked like as we boarded the plane to fly to Iraq. I remember being both excited and nervous at the same time.

A McDonald's sign I saw at Ali Al Salim base in Kuwait.

This a friend of mine, working for EODT security. He was actually deployed with me, but retired as a Sergeant Major after coming back and starting working for EODT back in Iraq. He's striking a tough-guy pose, but he's really the nicest guy you could meet

Here's a couple of the Iraqi Army soldiers we had living on our base. Not exactly Western standards, but they tried.

This photo was making the email rounds while I was in Iraq. Reportedly, it was a wolf captured in or around Baghdad. I don't know that wolves are indigenous to Iraq, so it could have come from the zoo.

This mosque, I was told, was Saddam's personal mosque near the Al Faw palace. Now, it's located on Victory Base Complex.

A collection of rocket launchers. Hajji will often set these up, put a rocket in it, set up some sort of timer device, and then leave the area for the rocket to fire at a later time.

QWBC, the FOB I was on, was an old Iraqi air force base and there were some of these old, beat fighters still lying around.

This is the Perfume Palace on Victory Base Complex in Baghdad. The story I heard was that this was once where Saddam and his boys kept their extra-curricular female companions. Now, it houses contractors.

In this photo, I'm in the lower right pulling perimeter security during a short halt in training.

The extension on the front of this HMMWV is used to set off IEDs prior to the HMMWV actually passing by. These have been used in Iraq for some time, so I don't think I'm giving away any secrets here.

We went through training on how to search a suspect and I got to play "suspect".

Believe it or not, this is what they served for dinner one night. I think it was a case of a Turk not translating to English correctly.

Everyone going overseas, no matter your job, has to learn how to do room clearing. Here we are training a "four-man stack". The squad leader is taking up the rear.

I would love to tell you what this mural says, but I never got it translated. I'm pretty sure it dates back to when the Iraqi Army and Air Force were still under Saddam. It was located in a building on our FOB.

If you fly much in Iraq, then you've likely been on one of these - a C-17. They are much better to fly in than C-130s.

040426-F-7823A-003 A U.S. Army solder from the 1st Infantry Division, LSA (Logistics Support Area) Anaconda, Iraq, scans the area while conducting a patrol on 26 APR 2004. The area is being cleared of threats so the TACPs (Tactical Air Control Party) can call in an air-strike. (cleared for public release) Photo by Staff Sgt Aaron Allmon II